Obloquy

Obloquy (pronounced ob-luh-kwee)

(1) Censure, blame or abusive language aimed at a person or thing, used especially of that made by multiple people or as an expression of public opinion.

(2) Discredit, disgrace, or bad repute resulting from public blame, abuse or denunciation.

(3) A false accusation; malevolent rumors (archaic).

1425-1475: From the late Middle English obloquie (evil speaking, slander, calumny, derogatory remarks), from the Medieval Latin obloquium (speaking against; contradiction), from obloquī (to speak against; to contradict), the construct being ob- (against) + loquī (to speak) (from the primitive Indo-European tolkw- & tolk- (to speak)) + -ium.  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements.  The noun oblocutor (plural oblocutors) was from the Latin and was from the agent noun counterpart (by virtue of appending the suffix –tor) of the verb obloquor.  It was used in the sense of “a gainsayer; a critic).  The Latin loquor (say; speak; talk) appears as an element in many English words including loquacious, colloquialism, soliloquy, circumlocution, colloquy, elocution, grandiloquence, loquacity and ventriloquist.  The usually cited synonyms are reproach, calumny; aspersion and revilement; the obviously useful comparative is “more obloquious” and the superlative “most obloquious”.  Obloguy & oblocutor are nouns and obloquial & obloquious are adjectives; the noun plural is obloquies.

In the same vein, although hardly in everyday use, the noun opprobrium (the plural opprobriums or (directly from the Latin) opprobria) is in more frequent use than obloquy; the synonym opprobry now obsolete.  Dating from the late seventeenth century, the original sense was “disgrace or bad reputation arising from exceedingly shameful behaviour; ignominy but it’s now used to mean (1) the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy and (2) a cause or object of such disgrace or reproach.  Opprobrium was a learned borrowing from the Latin opprobrium (and obprobrium) (a reproach, a taunt; disgrace, shame; dishonor; scandal) the construct being opprobrō (to reproach, upbraid; to taunt) + -ium (the suffix used to form abstract nouns). The construct of opprobrō was ob- (against) + probrum (“disgrace, shame; abuse, insult), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European pro- (forward; toward) + bher (to bear, carry (in the sense of something brought up to reproach a person)).

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Presidential debate 2024 #1: Sleazy old Donald v Senile old Joe, CNN, Georgia, June 2024.

The decision of host broadcaster CNN to (1) conduct the debate without a studio audience and (2) not fact-check the participant’s statements meant the event assumed an unusual dynamic and what will be remembered is (1) Joe Biden’s (b 1942; US president since 2021) lapses into mumbling incoherence, (2) Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) answering just about any question by referring to border-control & irregular immigration and (3) their mutual obloquy.  The lack of an audience may have worked to Trump’s advantage because, without a crowd to play to, he stuck to the script (borders, criminal migrants & inflation), resisting the temptation even to use his latest invention: “The Biden crime family”.  However, what he actually said was of less significance than it being linguistically coherent (if often blatantly untruthful although it was the Trump administration which brought the world “alternative facts” so maybe that’s OK), something which couldn’t always be said of Mr Biden who looked a decade beyond his 81 years and had shuffled onto the stage, waving to the non-existent audience.  Maybe he saw them there.  Mr Biden’s best piece of obloquy came when he said his opponent had “…the morals of an alley cat”, an observation likely not much to have troubled Mr Trump (and privately he might not disagree) and, doubtlessly tuned to CNN, Stormy Daniels (the stage name of Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) would have enjoyed the moment.  For all the wrong reasons, debate #1 will be remembered also for the brief, spiteful exchange about their respective golf handicaps, something about which plenty of men can’t be trusted to be entirely truthful, including this pair.

More than anything, the sight of Biden on stage resembled a once champion golfer who could still address the tee and sometimes make a drive like the great shots of old but could no longer chip or putt well enough to make par, the days of “making the cut” long gone.  It’s something well documented of politicians who stayed one election too many, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) private secretary Jock Colville (1915–1987) recalling the eighty-year old prime-minister less than a year after his severe stroke:

“He could still make a great speech but… he was aging month by month and was reluctant to read any papers except the newspapers or give his mind to anything that he did not find diverting.  More and more time was given to bezique [a card game of French origin] and less to public business.  The preparation of a parliamentary question might consume a whole morning; facts would be demanded from government departments and not arouse any interest when they arrived… it was becoming an effort even to sign letters and a positive condescension to read Foreign Office telegrams.  And yet, on some days, the old gleam would be there, with and good humor would bubble and sparkle, wisdom would roll out in telling sentences and still, occasionally, the sparkle of genius could be seen in a decision, a letter or phrase.  But was he the man to negotiate with the Russians and moderate the Americans?  The Foreign Office thought not… and I, who have been as intimate with him as anybody during these last years, simply do not know.”

The candidates as seen on TV screens.

Mr Biden’s performance was the worst ever seen in a US presidential debate; he was unable effectively to refute even Mr Trump’s most obvious untruths.  The reaction in the Democrat Party machine will have been to take from the filing cabinets the various contingency plans prepared for the eventuality of needing to find (for whatever reason) a replacement candidate for November’s election.  That list of names won’t be inspiring (perhaps not even encouraging) but as the polls detailing the public reaction to the debate appear in the next couple of days, it’s something the DNC (Democratic National Committee) will be discussing.  The mechanism the DNC will likely turn to is the “tap on the shoulder” to tell old Joe: “thank you, God bless you, goodbye” and it’s just a question of the vector.  The Tories in 1990 choose Margaret Thatcher’s (1925–2013; UK prime-minister 1979-1990) husband while in 1974, old Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) assembled a group of Republican congressional grandees to tell Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) he no longer had the numbers to avoid impeachment and conviction.  Technically, there are other possibilities including a contested convention in August but that’s messy compared with a nice hatchet job.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Presumably, all that’s thus far been discarded by the DNC is the idea of exhuming from the grave the political corpse of crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) to be given a quick réchauffé for November.  As in recent years it became increasingly obvious, the matter of Mr Biden’s cognitive decline would been discussed more and more within the Democrat Party machine but what the debate has done is suddenly to illustrate to the country just how serious things appear and men in his state tend not to improve; they go downhill.  Whereas in 1967-1968, his handling of the war in Vietnam meant for Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) things unravelled gradually, for Mr Biden debate #1 may be remembered as a sudden jolt.

Of course, incumbency is a powerful tool and Mr Biden has been in the business for over fifty years and may yet survive to be the candidate in November but after the debate concluded, US dollar and futures markets responded positively to the expectations of a second Trump administration and the betting sites saw a spike in wagers.  PredictIt, which packages the candidates as stocks with a price had Biden opening at 48 cents (ie a 48% chance of victory in November) which plummeted to 33 cents as the debate unfolded and within hours Trump had settled at 60 (up 7 from opening), Biden at 30.

Prior to one of the debates between the two in 2020, Mr Trump had his own explanation for how the DNC prepared his opponent for such occasions.  In 2024, it would seem, the dose should have been increased.